Color Palette — A practical guide
The goal of these lines is to trace a method to obtain a color set, the palette, to be used in a data analysis application that can help communicate better with the user.
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The palette is nothing more than the set of colors that we decide to use in the development of the dashboard, it may seem a marginal topic but the difference in using the standard colors of a BI tool and using a completely custom palette can be in some cases very big.
After all, the goal of each project is to involve the user. There are many ways to do this and obviously, presenting the right numbers is the fundamental step. But at this point, how do I increase the user’s trust and engagement towards the dashboard and the data it is presenting?
Use colors to simplify adoption
The first step is to welcome: make the user feel “at home”. By using the right colors, the entrance barrier can be greatly lowered when using the solution. Furthermore this is a hook to make the user participate in the development of the product, the color selection process can be participated and completely custom.
The consumption of the dashboard will appear integrated with a wider process, and during use, the user will already know that a certain color is associated with a positive news or on which bit of the dashboard it is necessary to focus attention, or again that a certain competitor is associated with a certain color (although there may be some confusion about blue and reds).
In addition, using a communicative style close to the brand identity allows the dashboard to acquire the authority of an institutional document.
The communicative power, the trust that the user feels towards the brand, and the authority it represents, will be inherited from the dashboard that you are developing.
Choose the right colors
The sources from which to take inspiration to select a set of right colors are not many:
The most institutional: brand guidelines. in companies where the brand is a relevant and well-kept asset, communication can also be very structured: those who define its parameters often distribute guidelines to follow in order to comply with the method and communication style chosen.
In this case, the brand guidelines are the main source from which to obtain not only the color palette but also the font, images, icons and layout.
The safe: the website. with the browser tools it is very easy to make a pick of the main color, even from the logo, and of some secondary color. even the logo itself can be downloaded, the font and much more. Obviously it is a little hacky, but what is life without a bit of pepper?
Finally, the most funky way. Stealing here and there from presentations, PDFs, and other more or less institutional documents. Clearly the mix of these three methods is almost always the most effective way.
Once a set of initial colors has been obtained, they can be “multiplied” using a palette generation application, such as coolors.com.
Their job is to select colors that go well together. There are several techniques for choosing the right colors within the spectrum of colors available, potentially infinite.
To understand how to choose colors, the first theoretical element to understand is the color wheel. This tool is an abstract illustration that shows the colors ordered and organized in a circle. The color wheel allows you to classify colors based on shades and hues. By taking two or three colors equidistant from each other in the color wheel, we can obtain complementary colors. vice versa if we take adjacent colors on the color wheel we will obtain similar colors or shades of color on the same hue.
At this point what we have to do is to compose a color set that contains two or three colors, of which the first is a color directly connected to the brand, the primary color of the brand, then the two complementary colors. In this way we will get the main colors of the dashboard. To these we will have to add a set of complementary colors that can be similar to the first colors. Using a software like coolors.com allows you to generate many colors following these schemes, it is also possible to enter some colors and then block them and generate the following ones in accordance with the first ones.
The colors in the dashboard
Now how to use these colors in the dashboard? the main color should be used for the main measure of the dashboard and this obviously depends on the context in which you operate. For example: sales in a commercial analysis, incoming traffic in a context of digital analytics, and so on.
The complementary colors to the first can be used for subsequent measurements, for example: budget, average session duration, etc; but also for the breakdowns or with the rankings. If I want to show the composition of a certain phenomenon I also find it very appropriate to use the shades of the primary color.
Then there are the so-called semantic colors, that is, colors that express a meaning in themselves, such as green for positive things and red for negative ones, for example in the context of the overcoming or not of a certain target. These colors should always be part of a complete palette and are often always the same between different projects and because they are independent of the context but more tied to cultural aspects. such as the traffic lights RAG Red, Amber, Green.
Are there any colors that should never be used? how do you compose your palette? Have you ever found that using the right colors has revolutionized your dashboard? Does the company where you work have brand guidelines?
I’m very curious to know what you think and what your experiences are
